“What’s the difference between a homeless person and a
thru-hiker?” Maddog asked one day in Washington. He, Gumby, and I had been hiking together for
most of Washington. Maddog and Gumby
took turns telling jokes to keep our minds occupied. I only knew two jokes, and I had told them
way back in California. “I don’t
know. What?” Pause.
“A Smartphone.” I laughed long
and hard and chuckled hours and days later.
 |
| Maddog and Gumby in Washington. The Trail began and ended with these two! |
I was reminded of this conversation the other week as I
headed out to help another ranger to dismantle a transient camp that had been
discovered within park boundaries. It
was the third camp from what appeared to be the same woman. As we approached the camp, he described the
other two camps they had found and how they’d also discovered soap and a
washcloth by the creek. I instantly
thought of how many times I had jumped into a creek to clean up on the PCT and
other backpacking trips. How “laundry”
in a creek was an every two to three day occasion during my five months on the
trail. I pushed out the thoughts and the empathy. “Makes sense,” was all I said.
When we reached the campsites (there were three relatively
close together, only one in use), my mind blanked and traveled back to the
Trail. On my right was a damp clearing
in the brush—not a prime campsite, but doable in a pinch. On my left was a clean, dry site below a
cedar tree; it was on the upslope of a hill, slightly dug in, and braced by a
few-feet-wide tree trunk. I
stopped. It was a place I had camped. It was cleared of brush as a PCT thru-hiker
would clear it. It was positioned at the
base of a tree as a PCT thru-hiker would position it. It was an area made flat by scraping into the slope as so
many PCT thru-hikers would sculpt it. I’d
have chosen that site if I walked by it on the PCT. I had slept in places just like that.
 |
| PCT transient camp with "the Canadians" in a cuddle puddle. |
We approached the most recent camp. Tarp over a sleeping bag, some clothing, a few
coffee cups, and a book. I tried to keep
my mind in ranger-mode, but I found myself wondering how her sleep setup fared in the rain, when the last time was that she did laundry, how she managed to
keep clean enough to hang around town and go to the library. When did she wake up? When did she read? What was it like for her to go to bed and
wake up outside day after day? Where was
she digging her cat holes? (The area was
remarkably clean.) As we packed up all
of her belongings, I couldn’t help but to feel a tinge of guilt. I, too, had lived outside for months. I had washed up in the creek. I had headed to town to clean up and get a
cheap or free meal. I had had no place
to go but outside, no one to talk to but Gumby and the birds and lizards, no
belongings but those that I could carry.
Who was I to take apart someone else’s campsite?
 |
| After spending nearly 5 hours in a McDonalds eating and charging electronics and cleaning up, I first realized that I was, indeed, homeless. |
I thought about and have been thinking about the above for a
couple of weeks. And I cannot resolve it
in my mind. It is another way the Trail
has changed my perspective—but it is so new that I don’t know yet what to do
with it. Clearly, what made Maddog’s
joke so exceptionally funny was how painfully close was to the naked truth. The line between thru-hiker and transient is
drawn with 4G.
